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Thursday, January 23, 2014

I "Loved It" Blackfish and Dear Zachary

There is really nothing like a great documentary. Pulling
one off is really quite an accomplishment. A documentary has a lot of things
going for it, and essentially relies 50% on the story and 50% on the delivery.
You could have the most amazing story in the world, but when all you have are
talking heads about the story that don't give the story anything extra (they
give it no heart, they make those involved no more real than the characters in
a story that they are to everyone else except those who knew them). It is the
responsibility of the those behind the documentary to move the story and the documentary in
such a way that the people talking and what they are talking about comes to
life in a way that the story becomes personal to us all, no just those who were
affected and are now talking to us about it.

The documentary is a story, but not
one we want read to us, one we want told to us, and Blackfish is a story that
is told to us, and it is amazing.

The fact that the documentary is also part of a legal drama
and is still entertaining is proof that it is well done. The pacing for the
events that the documentary chronicles is perfect. I went in thinking that it
was going to go over the whale at Sea World, what I got was a slow build,
showing the creation of the personality of the whale that was the main focus of
the movie.

I think that also plays a large part of how the documentary
is going to go. It adds something, a punch if you will, when you’re seeing real
people talk about a real event, and then something unexpected happens. It’s
like a movie, but it’s not a movie, it’s real life, stuff like this happens in
the real world.

Like Dear Zachary, which is the greatest
documentary I have ever seen. That film packed a punch the likes of which my
wife and I had never experienced. I will never forget telling her about the
movie and sitting down and watching it expecting an interesting story of the
friend of a murdered man fighting for the arrest and prosecution of the
murderer. The documentary was presented like a movie, although it was all just
real people talking, and old videos and pictures, and nothing more. The story
was amazing but the way it was put together was what really made it such an
experience. I told my wife at the end that it was a great film but boy they
sure did “make” you cry, and by that I mean they used quick flashes,
flashbacks, and sound editing to really punch the events into you so that it
was heartbreaking.

Dear
Zachary had two moments where my wife and I made sounds of surprise, and I
always take that to mean that we are really into the movie, it’s got us and it
just gave us a jerk to make sure we were still awake.

My wife
asked about Blackfish and I compared it to Dear Zachary. This movie has the
power of Dear Zachary, not nearly the punch because of the different stories,
but the power is still there.

I will
say, since it kind of pertains to Blackfish by way of it involves animals of
the ocean, that I hated The Cove. I did not understand why that movie was
getting such a highlight. I get that it was an important story that needed to
be told, but still, the story of dolphins being hunted and killed has been
around since I was in high school. Being told that it was still going on was
not a surprise nor really anything I cared about. It’s not good, and whoever
does it should stop, but seriously, The Cove is not a movie one should look to
for help in this area. The documentary is poorly done and completely destroys
the importance of the story by making it SO important.

The Cove
is not streaming – so who cares.

Blackfish
did more to highlight the cruelty to the animals in its film than The Cove did
in its’. The Cove was too interested in showing what the people went through
and how dangerous it was and how daring they were. So what? Is this supposed to
be about you or the animals? Blackfish does not make the mistake in thinking
the viewers are there for the story of how they made the documentary, but
instead they are there for the story.

And what a
story; it is truly a psychological tale of an animal’s descent from a creature
that is free in the ocean to one trapped in a pool. Like all great villains, it
is heartbreaking to see the whale transform into what he is forced into becoming
– basically a pet – except that this pet slowly begins to understand that he is
much bigger than his owners.

Like any
wild animal, be it a dog or a cat, no matter how broken or disciplined or
trained they are, they are still animals, and they can all still bite back.
Like people, it just depends on who it is; some can take things that would make
others feel angry, or trapped, and when others feel trapped they get depressed,
while others may fight back.

It is haunting
to see the clips of the accidents, and the one event that it retold simply
through the two girls who witnessed it is one of the worst. What I found really
disturbing are the close-calls, all the times that the trainers fell in the water
or almost fell in the water and the whale was there, ready and waiting and
trying, but when nothing happens it just waits for the next time.

Blackfish
also touches on the trainers themselves and their trust in the people they were
working for, and now looking back on events, you can see the guilt that they
live with because of that trust and how close they all came to being a victim
being talked about in the documentary instead of a witness.

Blackfish
is a testament of the evils of man against animals as well as the evils of man
against themselves. The lies that are told to cover up mistakes for the sake of
the almighty dollar are nothing compared to the lies that are told that
disparage the dead, using them as a way out is something only a disturbed
person would think of and then do, but then again, what do you expect from the
same people who treat animals in such a deplorable way and then put those animals
in with other people.